Rumors of war with Venezuela

COLOMBIA

Patricia Lara Salive

El Espectador

Our government is giving “contradictory and worrisome” signs that it is contemplating war with Venezuela, said Patricia Lara Salive. Colombia’s neighbor has been suffering from a humanitarian catastrophe, with hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine that have forced more than 1.5 million Venezuelans to flee, most of them to Colombia. During a visit last week to our border with Venezuela, Luis Almagro—secretary-general of the Organization of American States—accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of “crimes against humanity” and said a military intervention might be needed. Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, who was standing right there, raised no protest, and later our ambassador to the U.S., Francisco Santos, said that all options were under consideration. Colombian President Iván Duque insists his administration is not “warmongering,” but how else can you explain this behavior? Either Duque is secretly sponsoring “a gringo military intervention in Venezuela,” or his officials don’t know what his policy is. A war with socialist Venezuela would send a flood of refugees here and likely restart Colombia’s just-ended civil war with its own leftist radicals. Colombians need “clarity, decisiveness, and leadership, President Duque!”